CBT Humanistic Therapy

Why choose the therapy you do?

When choosing the counselling the counsellor/therapist works with you and helps you decide on this. Each method is different and does depend on the person’s needs as to which approach should be taken. Therefore, here is a brief explanation of more methods used by the therapist in Get Set 4 Success.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)

CBT is a ‘Here and Now’ approach to understanding and overcoming psychological problems and is a mixture of cognitive and behavioural therapieswhich are explained first:

Cognitive Therapy: Our ‘cognitive processes’ are our thoughts which include our ideas, mental images and attitudes. Cognitive therapy is based on the principle that certain ways of thinking can trigger, or ‘fuel’ certain health problems. For example, anxiety, depression, phobias etc, but there are others including physical problems. The therapist helps you to understand your current thought patterns, in particular to identify any harmful, unhelpful, and ‘false’ ideas or thoughts which you have that can trigger your health problem, or make it worse. The aim is then to change your ways of thinking to avoid these ideas and to help your thought patterns to be more realistic and helpful.

Behaviour Therapy: aims to change any behaviours that are harmful or not helpful. Various techniques are used. For example, a common unhelpful behaviour is to avoid situations that can make you anxious. In some people with phobias the avoidance can become extreme and affect day-to-day life. In this situation a type of behaviour therapy called ‘exposure therapy’ may be used. This is where you are gradually exposed more and more to feared situations. The therapist teaches you how to control anxiety and to cope when you face up to feared situations, for example by using deep breathing and other techniques.

CBT: combines these since how we behave often reflects how we think about certain things or situations. The emphasis on cognitive or behaviour aspects of therapy can vary, depending on the condition being treated. For example, there is often more emphasis on behaviour therapy when treating obsessive compulsive disorder (where repetitive compulsive actions are a main problem). On the other hand, the emphasis may be more on cognitive therapy when treating depression.

CBT is one type of psychotherapy (‘talking treatment’). The difference is that it does not involve ‘talking freely’, or dwelling on events in your past to gain insight into your emotional state of mind. CBT aims to treat problems in the ‘Here and Now’- focusing on the problems you have now and how you can change them now. This is achieved by working out an understanding of the interaction between your thoughts, feelings and behaviours through diary keeping. From this point of understanding, you may be given further homework of experiencing these ways of coping outside. CBT involves you and means taking an active part.

Humanistic Therapy

This type of counselling focuses on recognising human capabilities such as creativity, personal growth and choice. The objective is to find out how the client perceives themselves here and now and to recognise growth, self-direction and responsibilities. This method is optimistic and helps the client to recognise their strengths by offering a non-judgemental and understanding experience.

Person-Centred Counselling: comes under this banner; the therapist sees the client as a having an innate tendency to develop towards their full potential. However, life experiences inevitably distort and block these – messages given can lead to the person feeling under valued, not worthy and so on.

Using this method, the therapist aims to provide an environment, in which the client doe not feel threat or judgement. This enables the client to experience and accept more of who they are as a person, and reconnect with their own values and sense of worth, their inner values. From here the client is empowered to find their own way forward.

The therapist works to understand the client’s experience from their ‘world’, ‘through their eyes’ as opposed to the therapist eyes. The person is positively valued by the therapist, who offers openness and honesty (genuineness); thus, the relationship between therapist and client is crucial to the success of the therapy.

Gestalt Counselling, unlike Person-Centred, is directive and concentrates on the client’s though process and feelings. The main objective of this approach is for the client to become more aware of themselves taking into account their mind, body and spirit. The therapist constantly promotes the client’s awareness of themselves and uses ‘experiments’ such as role plays, writing and working with objects, to do so. The client is also helped to improve their ability to support own emotional feelings.